Durational effects of boundaries in Italian fricatives

Abstract : We examine durational effects in Italian word-initial fricatives-singleton [f], [s] and fricatives in the clusters [fr], [sp], [sk]-as a function of two positional factors: position with respect to stress (including the context of raddoppiamento sintattico-RS) and position relative to an Intonational phrase (IP) boundary. Results show that word-initial fricatives are longer the closer they are to the main stress syllable of the preceding word, in keeping with RS. Fricatives are shorter in IP-initial position than in non-IP-Initial, in keeping with increased consonanticity in domain-initial position. An interaction between the two factors shows that word-initial fricatives lengthen only when non-IP-initial, confirming the fact that RS is blocked in the presence of an IP boundary. We discuss the implications of the results for the linguistic use of segmental duration.